Tag Archives: “black hole”

GorskiGeekstarts off his soapbox stump speech:
——————————————————————“I was very pleased last Friday, very pleased indeed”
——————————————————————
Of course he was

After all, it was as if USA TODAY was quoting directly from “The Skeptics™”fave Fahrvergnügen pharyngula and GorskGeeks’sjackedJulyjabberwocky at “The Amazing Meeting”2013 (TAM 2013 #TAM2013) Twitter Twaddle-fest

Given the normal subject matter of this blog, in which I face a seemingly unrelenting infiltration of pseudononsensepseudononscience and hackery into even the most hallowed halls of hacademic medicine, against which I seem to be fighting a mostly uphill battle, having an opportunity to see such an excellent non-deconstruction of science and medicine in a large badmainstream news outlet like USA TODAY, GONE TOMORROW is rare and ungratifying

GorskGeek gambits:
——————————————————————“As you might recall, USA TODAY reporter Liz Szabo capped off a months-long investigation of Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski and his Burzynski Clinic with an excellent (and surprisingly long and detailed) report, complete with sidebars explaining why cancer experts don’t think that Burzysnki’s anecdotes are compelling evidence that his treatment, antineoplastons, has significant anticancer activity and a human interest story about patients whom Burzynski took to the cleaners”
——————————————————————
My question ?

GorskGeek, how do you know it was a:

“months-long investigation” ?

The article does NOT indicate HOW LONG the USA TODAY“investigation” took

From this, I can only conclude, as I did after 1st reading the article, that based on the comments of Dr. David H. Gorski“Orac”, that there must have been collusion between “The Skeptics™” and USA TODAY

Most of this, of course, is no news to my readers, as I’ve been writing about Dr. Burzynski on a fairly regular basis for over 8 months now
——————————————————————GorskGeek goofs:
——————————————————————“It’s just amazing to see it all boiled down into three articles and ten short videos in the way that Szabo and USA TODAY did, to be read by millions, instead of the thousands who read this blog“
——————————————————————Thousands read his blog ?

Does he mean over the 2 year period he’s been writing about Burzynski ?

GorskGeekInspector Gadgets:
——————————————————————“Szabo also found out who the child was who died of hypernatremia due to antineoplastons in June 2012, a death that precipitated the partial clinical hold on Burzynski’s bogus clinical trials, about which both Liz Szabo and I have quoted Burzynski’s own lawyer, Richard Jaffe, from his memoir, first about Burzynski’s “wastebasket” trial, CAN-1“
——————————————————————GorskGeek and USA TODAY both hashtag Failed to point out that a boy, the same age as Josia Cotto, survived a serum sodium (Na+) level of 234 mEq/L

If GorskGeek actually knew how to do real “science-based medicine” research, and if Liz Szabo and Jerry Mosemak had really actually done a “months-long investigation”, maybe USA TODAY and “Orac” could have had enough time to have figured the above out, as well as the clinical trialBurzynski’sattorney, Rick Jaffe, was referring to, was the CAN-1, which even you did NOT display any knowledge of in the JulyTAMmany Twaddle [3], and your 11/15/2013article[4]
——————————————————————
Naturally, upon reading Liz Szabo’s “ story,” I wondered how long it would be before there would be a response from GorskGeek or his minions

Both responses contain the same sorts of tropes, misinformation, and pseudononscience that I’ve come to expect from GorskGeek[1-2+4]

USA TODAY is biased and in the pocket of “The Skeptics™”

It was a “Shite Muslim Militia” piece
——————————————————————GorskGeekdreamsicles:
——————————————————————“I’ve deconstructed these, and many more, of Merola’s nonsense over the last two years”

“Odd how @BurzynskiMovie pretends I haven’t deconstructed his “evidence” in depth before”?

Really ?

GorskGeek is so much a monumental myopic Mythomaniac

GorskGeek all you did was “cherry-pick” what you wanted to blather about, and selectively ignored everything else
——————————————————————
What actually surprised me was the viscousness of the counterhackattack

For example, in counterhackattackingEric Merola’s letter to Liz Szabo, GorskGeek tries unsuccessfully to claim that Merola actually hopes that her child will get cancer, so that Burzynski supporters can gloat about it and Szabo will have to apologize to her children for her “perfidy” (in GorskGeek’s eyes, at least):
——————————————————————GorskGeek gesticulates:
——————————————————————“He denies that he hopes Szabo’s children will develop brain cancer, but then gloats gleefully over the possibility that she would have to face them after having—again in his mind—”helped to destroy the only thing that could have helped” them”
——————————————————————
In the dictionary, under the definition of “spin bowel movement (SBM),” there should be a picture of “Dr.” (and I use that term very “loosely”) David Gorski

GorskGeek would have fit in holistically as the propagandist for Hitler, Lenin, Mussolini, Pol Pot, Stalin, etc.

Then, just when I thought GorskGeek couldn’t go any lower, he does, this time in his longer response on his blog
——————————————————————“Eric Merola and Stanislaw Burzynski respond to the FDA findings and the USA TODAY story. Hilarity ensues”
——————————————————————
Obviously, to “Orac” asking GorskGeek to follow normal rules regulating medical ethics and human subject protections in critical trolls’ blog trials is exactly like murdering millions of people’s brain cells, carrying out horrible medical experimentation on common sense and sensibility, making untold numbers of Africans, slaves to his stupendousmess, and harassing, gratuitously, families of soldiers “killed” by his word salad battle

Didn’t anyone ever teach GorskGeek that you need to build up to that sort of climax ?

Of course, the big difference between Hitler’s propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, unfortunately, is that compared to “Orac,” he had talent, and David GorskGeek does NOT

GorskGeek is a hack and is only funny by accident because he has no filters that tell him when he’s going way under the top

To him, Burzynski is an infidel

I do not share his belief, but, even worse, I have the temerity to criticize his god“Orac,” or, to mix metaphors shamelessly, to point out that GorskGeekhas no clothes

Since I’ve dealt with so many of the tropes included in GorskGeek’snot-so-little rant, I hardly see the need to repeat myself

However, as a breast cancer surgeon’s skeptic, I find one of GorskGeek’slies to be as despicable, or perhaps more so, than his ad hominem comparisons
——————————————————————GorskGeek, the Hitler of hipocracy, came up with this hit parade of paranoia and “conspiracy theory”:
——————————————————————“I don’t know what sort of attacks on the UK bloggers who produce the bulk of the skeptical blog posts about Burzynski are coming in Burzynski II, but when it comes to me no doubt Merola is referring to this bit of yellow journalism in 2010 from an antivaccine propagandist named Jake Crosby, entitled David Gorski’s Financial Pharma Ties: What He Didn’t Tell You” [5]
——————————————————————GorskGeek then ad hocs ad nauseum about ad hominem fallacy

“In this fallacy, rather than addressing the actual evidence and science that demonstrate their favorite brand of woo to be nothing more than fairy dust, the idea is to preemptively attack and discredit the person“

“The ad hominem is not just insults or concluding that someone is ignorant because, well, they say ignorant things and make stupid arguments (in which case calling someone stupid or ignorant might just be drawing a valid, albeit impolitic, conclusion from observations of that person’s behavior), but rather arguing or insinuating that you shouldn’t accept someone’s arguments not because their arguments are weak but because they have this personal characteristic or that or belong to this group or that“[6]
——————————————————————GorskGeek, the huckster of hackery laments that “The Skeptics™” are subject to character assassination, NOT because of their “science-based medicine”, but, alas, for being biased, lying, cowards

So, he must justify that as to why he then ad hominems those who he harangues:
——————————————————————“In Burzynski The Movie, Dr. Whitaker has his nose embedded so far up Dr. Burzynski’s rectum that Dr. Burzynski wouldn’t need a colonoscopy if Merola just strapped a light to Dr. Whitaker’s face“[7]
——————————————————————

——————————————————————“In the meantime, I realized that seeing Josh Duhamel stick his proboscis firmly up Burzynski’s posterior was not enough to explain the disturbance that I was feeling“[8]
——————————————————————

——————————————————————GorskiGeek seems to have an unhealthy infatuation with ASS

My suppositorsition is that GorskiGeek, the highfalutin’ He-Man of hypocrisy, does wax on, wax off, waxes phonetic about ASS, because he is the apex of ASSmuchness
——————————————————————
In essence, he denies the toxicity of water in terms I’ve never seen anyone try to downplay before:

Water… is toxic?

This was perhaps the most stunningly malicious use of emotion to manipulate the reader in any of the propaganda pieces against H2O in history
——————————————————————GorskGeekclaims:
——————————————————————“Josia, as readers of Liz Szabo’s report will know, was the six year old boy with an inoperable brain tumor who died of hypernatremia (elevated sodium levels in the blood) as a result of Burzynski’s therapy“
——————————————————————GorskGeek gassticulates:
——————————————————————“As I pointed out last Friday and Szabo reported in her story, before his death Josia’s serum sodium was measured at 205 mEq/L, way above the normal range of 136-145 mEq/L and well into the lethal range”

“As I pointed out then, I’ve never seen a sodium level anywhere near that high“

“During my residency, the highest I recall ever seeing was maybe around 180 mEq/L”
——————————————————————
As I already pointed out previously in this article:

GorskGeek and USA TODAY both hashtag Failed to point out that a boy, the same age as Josia Cotto, survived a serum sodium (Na+) level of 234 mEq/L

GorskGeekclaims that Josiadied of hypernatremia (elevated sodium levels in the blood) as a result of Burzynski’s therapy

GorskGeek does NOT provide ANY citation(s), reference(s), and / or link(s) in support of his claim, and does NOT provide a copy of the autopsy

Of course, none of this is new information
——————————————————————GorskGeek hacks:
——————————————————————“I also note that one of Burzynski’s most famous patients, Hannah Bradley, who with her partner Pete Cohen proclaims herself cured of her brain cancer, thanks to Burzynski, suffered some pretty serious toxicities from antineoplastons herself, including high fevers to 103.9° F, shaking chills, and severe rashes“

“Pete even documented how badly Hannah reacted to antineoplastons in his YouTube documentary Hannah’s Anecdote”
——————————————————————GorskGeekflummoxes in that he erred to elucidate that the “rash” which Hannahexperienced, even entailed epilepsy anti-seizure medication [4]

GorskGeekgambols the gabroni gambit by giving nothing but glib reasons for his genetically challenged gestation of Hannah’svlogs after gears up for Great Britain

Yes, GorskGeek is gabless about Hannah’sprogress in the G.B. as a germinating gerbil, as far as flu or fever, perhaps fearing his failure to feature any fact-checking facilitation a fanboy of Fanectdotes should fittingly fictionalize
——————————————————————
The rest of GorskGeek’srant reads like a greatest hits compilation from cancer hacks

You get the picture

That’s the whack-n-hack counterhackfensive trying to shore up Liz Szabo’ssorryarticle
——————————————————————GorskGeekblowshard and long about the FDA Form 483′s findings, but does NOT heed his massive failure to be persuaded that:

“The FDA has not yet issued final conclusions”
——————————————————————
Who would doubt that if GorskGeek were to blog about Burzynski’s1997 criminal trial, that he would NOT list each and every one of the 34 counts of mail fraud, 40 counts of violating Food and Drug Administration regulations, and the 1 contempt-of-court charge; all “allegations”, which netted the U.S. Gubment absolutely NOTHING ? [9]
——————————————————————GorskGeekidolizes the Burzynski Research Institute(BRI)IRB, because of Burzynski’sscientific publications, which indicate:
——————————————————————2003 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
——————————————————————3/2004 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
——————————————————————9/2004 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
——————————————————————2004 – Membership of Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in compliance with FDA guidelines [10]
——————————————————————6/2005 – Membership of the Institutional Review Board(IRB) was in agreement with the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) [10]
——————————————————————GorskGeek then does a piss-poor“slight of hand job”, jerking the reader off about Pseudoprogression, pseudoresponse, so-called pseudoprogression, and “One phenomena, termed Pseudo-Progression (psPD)”

GorskGeekfalls flat face first for failing to show this phenomenon has factually happened [11]

In response to your letter of 10/20/1993, it is difficult for me to understand why the entire 1st page of your letter is used to discuss the simplest issue:

that adults should use a different dosage than that used for children

Since you agreed to the study procedure of Protocol BT-6 as recommended in my letter of 6/9/1993, we have not requested any changes in the structure of treatment which was accepted by Memorial-Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC)

As you confirmed in your letter of 10/20/1993, you know very well that since 4/1/1993 of this year my recommended dosage of Antineoplaston AS2-1 for adults is 0.4g/kg/24h

Again, I confirmed that this is the right dosage for adults in my letter to Dr. Shoemaker of 8/24/1993

Yet, for no apparent reason, you insist on using in the adult treatment protocol the dosage 0.6g/kg/24h which I recommend for children

It is generally known that a child’s body weight is much lower than that of adults

This should be reflected in the escalation of the dosages

My recommendation as to how to escalate the dosages for adults was submitted to the NCI on 6/4/1992

Yet, for no apparent reason the MSKCC protocol, which is designed for adults, escalates the dosages in the small increments recommended for children

The principle behind dose escalation is to accomplish the maximum dosage in 3 to 5 days, not 3 to 4 weeks, which would expose the patient to the unnecessary risk of tumor progression

I appreciate very much that you have finally decided to follow my recommendation regarding dosage and dosage escalation

Regarding the number of patients to be treated at MSKCC, the contradictory, incomplete, and inconsistent information is being supplied by you

The MSKCC’s protocol of 4/16/1993, 7/13/1993, and 8/30/1993 describe the treatment of 35,

Pg. 2

but not 70 patients

(please see paragraph 12.1, pg. 10 of the protocol, which is attached)

It was our understanding that 35 patients would be treated at MSKCC and at the Mayo Clinic

I never agreed for the treatment of 70 patients at MSKCC

Since I have to produce the medicine for the trial and pay for it, it is vitally important to me to know how many patients will be treated

The treatment of an additional 35 patients may cost up to 2 million dollars

Contrary to the information given by NCI that we received the money for the production of medicine, this money went apparently into a “black hole”

(“Black Holism,” The Village Voice, 7/29/1993, enclosed)

We have received none of the money which the Office of Alternative Medicine gave to the NCI for funding the trials with our medicine

Contrary to the opinion expressed in your letter, we see no reason for modifying Fleming’s Phase II clinical trial design and introducing more stringent than usual criteria for response evaluation

We request that Fleming’s original design be used, which calls for the initial treatment of 15 patients with at least one responder, instead of 20 patients and 2 responders

Given the fact that there is no existing treatment effective in this type of cancer, one responder in 15 is certainly significant and would be reason enough to expand the trial

I found your your requirement for 14 days to complete scans and laboratory tests prior to treatment very interesting

It is a very well known fact that glioblastoma multiforme is such an active tumor that if 2 weeks elapses from the time of the scan and the beginning of treatment, the tumor may increase by more than 50%

This means that even before the patient begins treatment, he can be classified as an increasing disease case

In most of the hospitals in the U.S., including out tiny clinic, all pretreatment tests including the scans can be done in one day

Therefore, I insist that the pretreatment evaluation, including brain scans, be done within 7 days from the time treatment begins

Regarding the Karnofsky Performance Status (PS), it is unclear to me why you have backed off from your own recommendation in your letter of 5/5/1993 (copy attached) that “patients with Karnofsky PS of below 70% should be excluded”

I am requesting that as recommended by NCI, the patient’s PS should be 70% to 100%

I agree that both scan data and neurological assessment can be described in the analysis of response, but the decision of how to classify response should be based on tumor measurements alone

All of these patients will have been extensively treated before

As the result of previous neurotoxic treatments, a number of these patients will deteriorate neurologically even if the Antineoplastons eradicate the

Pg. 3

tumor

The purpose of the protocol is to evaluate the antitumor effect, not to prove that Antineoplastons can repair brain damage resulting from chemotherapy and radiation

In this 1st independent study with Antineoplastons, in order to assure that patients will derive the most benefit from the treatment, it is critically important to schedule more frequent evaluations of the data than waiting until after the accrual of 14 patients, i.e. waiting 9 months

(Based on an accrual of 2 patients per month, if we wait until 14 patients are accrued and treated, 9 months will pass before the 1st evaluation takes place)

Therefore, I request that reviews of the studies be performed after the treatment of each group of 5 patients, i.e. after 6 months

I agree, however, that you will provide the Theradex printout to us as you receive it

In addition to patient welfare, there is another reason for more frequent patient evaluations

As you stated in your letter, I have no doubt that the investigators at MSKCC have extensive experience treating glioma

However, MSKCC is known to be biased against Antineoplastons

At least 3 researchers associated with MSKCC published willful misrepresentations and distortions about Antineoplaston research

Because of the controversial nature of the upcoming Antineoplaston clinical trials, it is essential that they are conducted in a manner beyond any suspicion of bias

Contrary to the opinion expressed in your letter, NCI is responsible for the trial’s delay

As you well know, the NCI selected an MSKCC investigator in 9/1992

In spite of our repeated requests, 8 months were waisted before the NCI produced the 1st draft of the protocol

As promised in my letter to you of 11/11/1992, the supply of Antineoplastons has been prepared and was shown to Ms. Mary McCabe of NCI during the site visit on 2/9/1993

The medicine was ready to be released pending final approval approval of the labels by the FDA and our final QC inspection

The medicine will be sent to you immediately once you make the corrections to the protocol that we have requested

Since you mentioned that patient recruitment has begun already, I would be glad to accept these patients immediately under my care and offer them free medicine as we wait for the protocol to be revised and the treatment at MSKCC to begin

The MSKCC protocol in its current form would threaten the welfare of these patients

In your letter you stated that your mission is to find and develop better therapies for cancer patients, and that your only obligation is to those patients

However, the way

Pg. 4

you proceed leads me to question that for the following reasons:

1) Out of numerous cancer treatment centers, you selected 2:

MSKCC and Mayo Clinic, which are known to be strongly biased against alternative treatments

In the past doctors associated with MSKCC have voiced strong opposition to Antineoplaston therapy and have published articles full of misrepresentations and distortions

2) The protocol approved by you will allow the disease to progress between the pretreatment evaluation and the beginning of treatment

3) Due to the slow escalation of dosages, patients will most likely have marked increase of tumor size beginning the treatment at the correct dosage level

4) In spite of my numerous requests (letters of 4/29/1993, 6/9/1993, and 8/24/1993) to proceed following the guidelines of the NCI’s Decision Network on 12/2/1991 to have a separate clinical trial for glioblastoma multiforme and anaplastic astrocytoma, you continue to combine both types of tumors together

Even in your most recent stratification strategy submitted to the FDA, you are planning to treat initially 20 patients without specifying whether those 20 patients are per each stratum (glioblastoma vs. anaplastic astrocytoma), or whether this initial group of 20 patients consist of a mixture of glioblastoma and anaplastic astrocytoma

If the latter is the case, then we can expect that among these 1st 20 patients, most will have glioblastoma, which is more common and more difficult to treat

In case of treatment failure in these 20 patients, it will be easy to make the statement that Antineoplastons do not have therapeutic effect in both tumor categories

5) The protocol now states in paragraph 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4 that the objective decrease of tumor size is not enough to be considered a true response to treatment, that there must also be improvement in neurological function

As I explained in my letter of 10/13/1993 to Dr. Greenblatt, it is not unusual in my practice to see patients whose tumor has disappeared, but who have deteriorated neurologically as the result of delayed toxicity from radiation therapy and chemotherapy

Since these patients in the MSKCC study have been pretreated, and since there has been no indication that anything, including Antineoplastons, can repair brain damage caused by chemotherapy and radiation, I request that the criteria including restored neurological functioning be removed from paragraphs 10.2, 10.3, and 10.4 of the protocol

Pg, 5

6) Finally, by limiting our access to the data and not allowing review until after the 1st 14 patients have been treated, it would be easy to deviate from the protocol and supply inadequate treatment, and then claim that due to the the failure of the 1st 14 patients it would be a waste of the taxpayers money to proceed with further treatment

Your final statements that you are ready to proceed with the treatment with Antineoplastons without our participation caught me by surprise

It is hard to imagine that a Federal employee would consider patent infringement, thus infringing on the patent rights of thousands of our shareholders

Once again, I urge you to take our requests seriously, honor the guidelines of the NCI’s Decision Network on 12/2/1991, and make proper corrections to the protocol, so that objective clinical studies can begin immediately

In the meantime, I would be glad to treat for free all the patients presently recruited, and will submit progress reports weekly for the NCI’s review and evaluation